This is a guest post by ClimateDenierRoundup.

Back in 2012, documents obtained from the Heartland Institute revealed that the industry-funded group had plans to send teachers climate denial resources. The person leading up that effort, reporters confirmed, was to be energy consultant David Wojick. But once exposed, the plan seemed to have disappeared.

Heartland again made news last year for trying to trick teachers into propagating their denial. This time, the institute decided to send out to thousands of teachers, unsolicited, its IPCC knock-off report. Most teachers contacted by reporters for stories didn’t seem to buy the ruse. (We’ve even heard that one professor uses it in his Intro to Climate Change class for freshmen in college — to use as a punching bag to teach the kids how to critically examine claims.)

Now it looks like CFACT [Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow] is picking up where Heartland left off.

The who's who of America's conservative movement gather each year at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) outside of D.C.

This year was no exception. You could get a selfie with former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele. Or on the ballroom main stage, you could catch a speech by the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) Wayne LaPierre and this year, even President Donald Trump.

And in a small, lightly attended side room, the who’s who of climate science deniers converged at a Heartland Institute panel, where they, predictably, used former Vice President Al Gore as a punching bag, gushed over Trump’s environmental protection rollbacks, and alleged that the scientific consensus on climate change is a lie.

Will 2018 be the year that mainstream media is not duped by professional spin doctors and fake experts paid to downplay and deny the realities of climate change?

Call me cynical, but after more than a decade of research and writing into the role big fossil fuel companies have played in sponsoring coordinated attacks on climate science with public relations spin, I remain unconvinced we won’t see a resurgence in climate denial.

Later this year, a major update on the state of climate change research — the impacts, solutions, scientific underpinnings, etc. — will be released by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).